The head of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority says things are gradually getting better in several key areas at Toronto Pearson.
Deborah Flint, President and Chief Executive Officer of the GTAA, said today that Canada’s busiest airport is “seeing measurable improvements in flight delays, cancellations, baggage delivery and wait times.
“The aviation system worldwide is facing a perfect storm as it strives to improve operations in the aftermath of COVID-19. But the industry is rebounding, and the metrics we are sharing today show how working with our partners is yielding results,” she said.
While acknowledging the difficulties faced this summer, Flint said the GTAA is focusing on two key operational areas: passenger experience and digital tools.
Passenger experience
Responsibility for the passenger journey is shared. The GTAA has collaborated with airlines, government and other partners on technological advancements, hiring and passenger education. The GTAA has also worked collaboratively with its partners on voluntary schedule reductions.
As a result, Toronto Pearson is now seeing improvements across several key performance metrics, which it expects to continue or accelerate into the fall:
Security screening
The most recent data from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) indicates that 82 per cent of passengers last week cleared security in less than 15 minutes. That’s a one percentage point increase over the rolling average for the previous four weeks.
Airline on-time performance
A flight information board at Toronto Pearson Airport. JIM BYERS PHOTO
Last week, across the airport, 44 per cent of all flights were on time, versus a 35 per cent average for the four previous weeks.
The website FlightAware.com shows that 37 flights that were supposed to leave Pearson on Thursday were cancelled; about five per cent of all flights. For incoming flights to YYZ, 44 were cancelled, about seven per cent. For outgoing flights, there were 264 delays, or a full 42%. For incoming flights on Thursday, there were 271 delays (43%). For Friday, stats show 34 cancelled outbound flights (5%) and 277 delays (46%). For inbound flights on Friday, there were 38 cancellations (6%) and 248 delays (41%).
International arrivals
At times, the airport is forced to hold passengers on their plane to make room in the customs hall. This happened 19 times last week, an improvement from a four-week rolling average of 60 plane holds per week.
Baggage delivery
Baggage delivery is managed by the airlines, but Toronto Pearson has made it an ongoing focus for collaborative improvement. For domestic travel, the average wait time for bags to arrive at the carousel is now 24 minutes, a three-minute improvement over the four-week average. The same metric also improved by three minutes for international bags, and by four minutes for transborder bags.
Digital tools
To put power back in passengers’ hands and help them be active enablers of a smoother experience, the GTAA is committed to providing more tools to give insight into what to expect, including interactive infographics; a peak times dashboard with information on how busy each terminal is based on historical information from the past two weeks; and an at-a-glance resource that will be updated weekly with many of the data points Ms. Flint discussed today.
Ms. Flint will host regular press conferences at the airport where she and her team will provide a status update on operational progress and answer questions from the media.
The progress made in recent weeks shows that this summer has been a transitionary period made particularly challenging by the length of time the Canadian aviation sector was shut down. The GTAA is committed to making systematic changes to the way passengers move through the airport and across borders by studying global best practices and working with industry partners and the federal government to champion further changes so that Toronto Pearson continues to be a global leader in connecting people and businesses.
